Katari
by TheLadyMuse
Summary: Inspired By Lang's latest chapter. My heart broke for Kakashi, and I was sure he was embarrassed about that bet. So, here's one way he might have gotten the bookies to back off... More bitter than sweet, people.


**A/N: Latest chapter of CYB inspired this. Sorry if it comes off weird**

He knows she means well, but for Kei to believe he's interested in Shizune… Well, desperate times call for desperate measures. That's why he sends a letter, discreetly as possible. He knows the recipient will help him, get that damn bet off his head, but… It will hurt her to do so.

So he dresses in new nin pants, a shined hitai ate and grey long sleeve shirt. His hair he takes care to spike up, and his jonin vest he leaves off entirely. The night that a discreet suggestion spawned is upon him, and so he goes to the gate to pick up his 'guest'. She looks like a young, fresh faced, dew eyed ojou-sama, fresh from the capital. She is a beautiful woman, but older then her genjutsu suggests, wearier than even her clanmates would know. But, she is fresh from the capital, where she lives a life she can tolerate instead of a life of pain.

He dances with her, all night, knows part of her is pretending he is a different man, that this is a different time. Knows he'll hold her later in her guilt. But the expressions of everyone around him are priceless. Yes, he is all kinds of in love with his teammate, but this woman too, has a claim on him.

When he summons the dogs at one point, having explained when he got the confirmation, though they mob her, they don't say her name. Perhaps their charade will work, he hopes. Because he does love Kei, but he's a Hatake. They are loyal to the bone, loving to the extreme. So he dances with the mysterious woman of Uchiha black hair and delicate features, holds her close so she won't shatter in the middle of the Konoha streets.

KATARI

Kei is not jealous. She's curious, confused and bewildered, but not jealous. No, absolutely not.

Though, like everyone else, she wants to know who the hell Kakashi is dancing with, both of them sliding around each other with the grace of old lovers. She laughs at him, hands on his chest as he leans in close, whispering words Kei herself can't hear, but that have this mystery woman giggling in near hysterics.

When Kakashi summons his dogs, they crowd the new woman, who greets them with the ease of an old friend. Unsettled, Kei decides this bears observation.

KATARI

Tsunade is confused, and it shows in the way she trades glances with Mikoto. Surely, it is purely coincidence that after all the ridiculous bets piled on Kakashi, a woman who looks like a much younger Uchiha Katari waltzes through the gate, dancing with Kakashi. If you knew what to look for, if you squinted, you could see Hatake Sakumo, the summer before he was married, dancing with Mikoto's older cousin, both of them wrapped up in each other.

In a single moment, a chill comes over both women. Katari had been on mission when Sakumo… Well, no one had known how close she and Kakashi might have been, after his mother died, and she and Sakumo resumed their previous relationship. Oh, Sakumo had mourned, as was custom, and Katari had been a teammate first, a teammate helping him with his son. But everyone in town had known what they were to each other, had known why Katari resigned her commission. Nominally, Tsunade knows, the other woman is Konoha's ambassador to the Daimyo, but only because Hiruzen hadn't been able to lose anyone for the war effort.

But why? Why had Katari returned in disguise, or her daughter, if she'd had one? If she did have a daughter, why wasn't she on the clan rolls?

As much as she'd like to know, Tsunade won't ask, because she and Katari had suffered similarly, and Mikoto won't because she needn't cause a scene, but still… Who was she?

KATARI

Minato and Fugaku, like Tsunade and Mikoto, wonder. Kakashi looks so happy, whirling the small woman- kunoichi?- around easily.

Well, Minato wonders.

Fugaku knows. Knows in his bones that the Hatake were among the few who could match the Uchiha for loyalty, knows the hatred Katari bears for the village that killed the man she loved. Knows too, that she had loved Kakashi as her own, would fight her own misery if he needed her. Thank Kami the elders had remembered Katari and Sakumo, had only protested Kakashi's Sharingan to test Minato's protectiveness. Had the blond proved any less than absolute in his affection for Katari's boy, they'd have fought in blood for Kakashi and Obito, damn the consequences, and taken the whole clan from the village.

He loves his clan, celebrates and grieves and rages with them, but he rarely weeps with them. As clan head, he was told, it is inappropriate to do so. But for Katari, who lost her family as a girl and her lover as a woman, first to marriage, and then death, not one had begrudged him the few tears he shed as she sobbed in his arms, for her man and their boy. Fugaku knows now that Kakashi had understood or forgiven or both her need to escape the village that killed Sakumo.

For all her strength, Katari could only endure so much.

KATARI

He knows she will leave soon, after she sees the grotto where he spread the ashes of his father and she spread the ashes of his brother, who'd been born many months too soon.

But tonight, they each know the other is as alright as they can be, that bet is off his back, most likely, and she's had the fantasy, if not the reality, that she danced with his father again. Maybe it should make him feel dirty or used, but the truth is, ninjas have to take love any way they can. So it would not surprise his mother in all but blood if while they played their prank on Konoha, if he made believe she was Kei.

His heart aches to lose her again, but as much as he loves Konoha, she hates it, hates what it cost her. She isn't perfect, but she is his-

"Kaa-chan." Her eyes meet his, and she puts a hand on his cheek and murmurs

"Musuko." Together, they say the word she will never say to any other but the dead, and that he hasn't earned the right to use on the living

"Aisheteru."

 **Translations:**

 **Kaa-chan- Mom, Mama**

 **Musuko- son**

 **Aishiteru- Love you, I love you**

 **Oh, if anyone (especially you, Lang!) Wants to use Katari, go ahead. I'm not that greedy ; )**


End file.
